Josh Goodbaum: Hi, Amanda.
Amanda DeMatteis: Hi, Josh. What are we gonna chat about today?
Goodbaum: I saw a story on the news recently about a guy who graduated from law school in Tennessee, and he’s applying to the bar and they ask him some questions, and eventually, it comes out that he is a recovering drug addict. And he’s having some trouble being admitted to the bar as a practicing attorney.
That’s not exactly an employment issue, but this could easily come up in the employment context. So I was wondering: Can someone be fired from their job because they are a recovering drug addict or alcoholic or because they are in treatment for a drug addiction or for alcoholism? What’s the answer?
DeMatteis: If an employee in Connecticut is recovering from either alcoholism or drug addiction, they may have protection under both the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Connecticut Fair Employment Practices Act. An employer cannot discriminate against an employee for treating for alcoholism or drug addiction. Because remember: as an addict, you meet the definition of a disabled person under both our state law and our federal law, which protect disabled employees at work.
What that doesn’t mean is that you can show up for work drunk and say, “Well, wait a minute, I’m in this protected class of disability because I am an alcoholic.” That’s not gonna do the trick, right? The conduct of appearing at work drunk or high on an illegal substance is not protected by either our state or federal law.
But if you say to your boss or to your employer, “I need to go to rehab for a month,” or “I need FMLA leave because I need to treat this disability that I have” – which might, in fact, be drug addiction – those things are protected under state disability discrimination law, federal disability discrimination law, and potentially the Family and Medical Leave Act as well.
Goodbaum: I agree with that 100%, Amanda. The way I have thought about it, and I have had cases that address this exact issue, is that there’s a difference between the status of being a person with alcoholism or a person with drug addiction and the conduct of being a person who uses drugs or abuses alcohol. The status is protected; the conduct is not.
So that’s how I tend to think about this from a disability discrimination perspective. Hopefully, that’s helpful to all of you watching. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out, and we’ll see you next time.